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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28349280">Once Upon a Time in Perivale</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DBC_82/pseuds/DBC_82'>DBC_82</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath, Christmas, Classic Who Companions Are Awesome, Closure, Family History, Gen, London, Serial: s154 The Curse of Fenric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:41:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,648</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28349280</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DBC_82/pseuds/DBC_82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Set both immediately before and after (and also significantly after) the end of The Curse of Fenric (Timey Wimey!) the Doctor and Ace attempt to lay their ghosts to rest and head back to Perivale in time for Christmas, only to encounter an old enemy again. </p><p>The latest coda in my series of 'what happened after the tv story ended' for the Doctor and Ace. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Seventh Doctor &amp; Ace McShane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Once Upon a Time in Perivale</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Beneath a black sky on a plain of dust and bones a thousand miles across the Doctor sat in a heavy wooden chair and stared intently ahead, his grey eyes never wavering from the chessboard in front of him. In the inky darkness far above another star flared and died, quietly folding in on itself as it fell into the dark matter reefs and the vast empty tracts of space-time which had already collapsed into nothingness. From across the table came the slow rhythmic tap of a pawn being struck against a queen. The Doctor ignored the sound, his hand hovering over the ornately carved chess pieces already scattered across the board in mid-play as he pondered his next move. The noise stopped abruptly and the pawn was slowly placed back onto the board by the delicate hand of a thin yet entirely unremarkable man with grey hair and a pale complexion, dressed in an immaculate black suit. They faced each other in the otherwise silent void while around them the universe grew ever colder and reality slid inevitably towards the red shift.<br/>The thin man cleared his throat, 'So here we are again Time Lord,' he said with a cruel smile, 'Playing the immortal game at the end of everything.'<br/>The Doctor spoke without taking his eyes from the board, 'Shall we skip the portentous posturing? I think the imminent collapse of reality itself is probably enough of a spectacle without your grandstanding.'<br/>'How you must detest being trapped, and to find yourself in my domain after all these aeons.'<br/>The Doctor looked around him with a raised eyebrow and ran a finger across the the table, 'Would it have killed you to tidy up a bit? A bit of a dust at least, maybe run the hoover round if you're expecting company? I bet you'd look terribly smart in an apron.'<br/>'Cease your prattling tongue before I unleash a torment such as you could never imagine!'<br/>'Oh I know this tune! You hum it and I'll play it,' the Doctor said, producing a pair of spoons from an inside pocket.<br/>The thin man slammed his hand onto the table, making the chess pieces clatter on the board. 'I will destroy you!'<br/>'That's right,' the Time Lord called over the clattering sound of the spoons striking against his knee, 'All the way to the cheap seats!'<br/>His opponent composed himself and smiled sardonically, 'I almost admire your foolishness in the face of my power. Have you always been so flippant in the face of true evil?'<br/>The Doctor put away his spoons and yawned. 'Yes, yes, I was wondering when we'd get around to the evil. You're oh so devious and powerful and oh so evil! You're the original ancient naughtiness from beyond the dawn of time and I am your helpless prisoner blah blah blah. Change the record, it's older than both of us.'<br/>'Silence!'<br/>'Make me!' the Doctor shouted in response. 'If you are all powerful then make me stop talking, I dare you...No?' he leaned back in his chair and smiled. 'I thought not.'<br/>Angry grey eyes glowered at him from across the table. ' I can't help but notice you're travelling alone.' he said eventually. 'No companion to save you this time.'<br/>'Well done,' the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. 'You've finally said something interesting. Lets talk about Ace, that is the reason why I'm here after all.'<br/>'You're here at my behest and entirely under my control.'<br/>'Fine, fine, whatever you say but it's Ace that I'd very much like to discuss. I have grave concerns regarding her future... so many variables, so much interference...'<br/>The thin man's dull grey eyes flashed green in the dim light and he leered unpleasantly, 'Sugar and spice and all things nice. What is it that you'd like to know?.'<br/>'You know exactly what I'd like to know. Tell me about Christmas.'</p><p class="western">******</p><p>'Believe me,' he said, as if anything could ever be that simple again.<br/>She wiped her muddy hands down the front of her dress and clambered unsteadily to her feet, ignoring the Doctor's outstretched hand. 'Believe you?' she said incredulously. 'All this time I thought I was watching your back, keeping you out of trouble, the Doctor and Ace out among the stars saving the universe! What a joke,' she said bitterly.<br/>'I did what I had to,' he said.<br/>'Of course you did, just like you always do. Nuking Skaro, wiping out the Cyberfleet, talking Helen A into a nervous breakdown, you always do what you have to do, I just never thought you'd do it to me!'<br/>Ace started walking with no idea of where she was going, she only knew she had to put as much space as possible between her and what had just happened. As she walked she thought about Sorin again and decided she absolutely, positively wasn't going to cry. He'd been kind and brave and she was glad that she hadn't seen him die, it was bad enough seeing what he'd been turned into. Just another one of Fenric's puppets like Judson and Millington, it hadn't mattered whose side they even were on in the end or why they were fighting, it was all just wars within wars, small battles and human failing.<br/>I was just a bloody pawn all along, she thought to herself, and how easy it would be if she could really believe that. Deep down she knew the Doctor didn't really think it either so why was she still so angry with him? Her thoughts were racing as she stomped through the mud away from the ruins of the military base behind her but the Doctor insisted on talking as he stumbled alongside her. 'I promise I never meant for you to get hurt, if there'd been any other way I'd have taken it but you're so strong, you always have been. Fenric knew it as well, that's why he chose you.'<br/>'Chose me?' she spat. 'Fenric didn't choose me, he used me. Just like you did. All part of one of your clever little plans only I was too stupid to figure it out, and the worst part is that you've known all along! What was it Fenric said? “Since Iceworld.” Imagine finding out that not only does your best friend know why you were dragged halfway across the galaxy at the tender age of sixteen but he's just never bothered to tell you. Turns out it had all just been a great big chess game and I was just too stupid to see the squares.'<br/>'No!' he shouted. 'It was never like that.' He reached out a hand but she slapped it away, balled her fists in her pockets as she steadfastly continued putting one foot in front of the other, all the while screaming inside.<br/>'No I was wrong,' she said, 'the absolute worst part was that I created the future I hated, stuck inside that flat in Perivale with Audrey, always either angry or drunk.' She realised she was shouting again. If only she'd known as she'd said those rushed words to Kathleen what exactly it was she'd been setting in motion, all she''d wanted to do was to save the baby. Instead she'd done exactly what was required of her, all part of Fenric's plans.<br/>Fenric could go to hell, or whatever shadow dimension it was he'd crawled out of.<br/>She stopped walking just as suddenly as she'd started and looked at her companion. His eyes looked sadder than she'd ever seen them before but still she couldn't bring herself to forgive him. My best friend in the whole world, the man I trust with my life and whose back I will guard till such a time that I'm no longer able to. She shivered again and it all just seemed like a joke. How many months had it been since she'd stood and wondered in the aftermath of Gabriel Chase if the Doctor really had her best interests at heart? That should have been a clue. Guess I got my answer, she thought.<br/>The Doctor reached out and took her hand, his own rough and warm against her skin. 'Everything you went through made you who you are and you were my friend before I even knew you were marked by Fenric. I'm so sorry I deceived you, I only ever wanted to give you the opportunity to be your own person, to shake off all the limitations that your teachers and your past had burdened you with. I could see that you were wonderful from the moment we met and I'm so proud of the woman you've become.'<br/>They'd reached the edge of the deserted military base, all the soldiers were with either dead or long gone and the air had a graveyard stench. In the stillness after battle she took a moment to really look at her best friend. He only seemed like a man in early middle age who spoke with a Scottish accent but in reality he was so much more than the sum of his strange little parts. Was he too much more though? The Doctor was the thing monsters were scared of, what happened when his friends started to be scared of him as well?<br/>Ace looked down at her muddy dress and shoes and realised she was filthy and exhausted. Hating her mother with such a ferocity felt like such a silly, childish thing and to be burdened with an anger that had no place in her life anymore seemed suddenly ridiculous.<br/>The Doctor was by her side just as he'd always been, gazing at her with such a look of hopeful expectation that she thought her heart might break. She realised in that moment it was the same anger she felt for him as she did for her mum, the same feeling of rage and betrayal. It was time to cut it adrift<br/>'I know this is going to sound strange...' she said eventually.<br/>'Yes?'<br/>She looked at him for what felt like an age, straight in those sad old eyes as he stood there just waiting. 'I think I want to go swimming.'<br/>He smiled, 'I know just the place.'</p><p class="western">******</p><p>It was much later that they made their way out of Maiden's Bay and Ace could finally breath. Shivering in her wet clothes she tried to keep hold of the feeling of elation she'd felt after climbing out of the sea but the further away the walked the harder it was becoming to remember exactly what it was she'd been so happy about. It had all made sense when she was in the water, now she was back on dry land it all seemed so strange again.<br/>Ace looked sideways at her friend as they stumbled across the stony beach, holding each other tightly, the Doctor planting his umbrella into the stony beach with a certainty she wasn't sure he really felt. She understood that her life wasn't normal, her best friend was an immortal alien who travelled the universe fighting injustice and doling out tea at such times that it was required but this was an all new level of strangeness. She'd just met her nan as a young woman, had sat and held her hand when she found out she'd been made a widow; hell, she'd even cradled her own mother as a baby and loved her without knowing who she was. She shook her head and focussed instead on the rushing sound of the sea crashing against the rocks. Did she still hate her mum? She'd felt numb for so long that it was hard to tell if anything had changed. The Doctor was really the only person other than Manisha that she'd ever really bothered to to let in other than family, and that had always been a let down too. Poor dead Manisha and poor dead dad. For a while it'd seemed like all the people Dorothy loved were handed a death sentence. Still there was always the Doctor, dependable and devious in his own strange way. She used to think he'd never do anything to hurt her, like she'd finally found someone she could really rely on. He'd spent a good half an hour on their walk to the beach explaining and apologising and despite it all she felt like if anything she knew him a little better now. Still they had a way to go before they were back to normal.<br/>Trust is like getting given a really great bicycle when you're little, she mused, lovely to have and horrible once it's been taken away.<br/>She stopped walking abruptly and stood very still on the slippery stones despite the cold wind whipping under her wet clothes. Something about the thought of a bicycle had triggered a memory so vivid she wondered how she could ever have forgotten it. It'd been dark, she'd had cold feet and their had been an empty stocking hanging at the end of her bed but that was all that she could remember.<br/>The Doctor realised she wasn't walking beside him and turned back with a frown. 'What's wrong?'<br/>'Something important, I...'<br/>And then she remembered, it wasn't the bicycle that had triggered the memory but the the lack of a bicycle. Once upon a time in Perivale, Dorothy had known what it meant for monsters to be real and the world was still magic. It must have been Christmas because everything in her memory was lit with the diffuse sparkle of tinsel and those really cheap Christmas tree lights her mum used to buy from Woolworth's. She'd woken up in the cold dark quiet and listened for a long time to the sound of raised voices from downstairs. When it eventually fell silent she decided it was safe to stick a foot out from the warm folds of her duvet to test the temperature. Wrapping herself up tightly in her dressing gown and putting on her fluffy slippers Dorothy had wandered downstairs because she thought maybe she'd been asleep long enough that Father Christmas might have had been but as she descended the stairs it wasn't reindeers she could hear, it was the sound of a sadness too big to comprehend. As she'd pushed open the door of the living room she'd found Audrey sat weeping on the floor, illuminated by the dull plastic lights of the Christmas tree, Her make up was smudged and her clothes looked just a little bit too tight like they always did but it was still her mum and she was sad. The memory must have stuck because for once Audrey hadn't shouted or sent her back to bed, she'd reached out a trembling hand and held her daughter uncomfortably close as she sobbed silently on the living room floor. Little Dorothy had sat ever so still while her mother cried, all thoughts of Christmas forgotten. There'd been an empty wine bottle on the floor and the room had held that same familiar stink of cigarettes but Dorothy hadn't cared because although she didn't understand what had changed, she felt that in that moment she was loved. Ace didn't care about Christmas. She thought it was naff and the last thing the world needed was more tat bought for people who didn't really need it by those who didn't really care. It was all just landfill in the end but then that was true of most things if you waited long enough.<br/>Give me a pound of really decent explosives, she thought, and we'll see what that does to a silent night.<br/>Of course now she was older she knew that monsters actually were real but they weren't necessarily hiding under the bed, they walked around in the sunshine looking outwardly like normal people because you couldn't necessarily see what was on the inside, life was never that simple. Of course the Doctor had showed her that the other kind of monsters were real too but then so was magic.<br/>'What is it?' the Doctor asked again.<br/>'When I was in the water I membered something about mum, it was Christmas and...'<br/>She shook her head. There was something about the memory that felt familiar somehow but didn't quite add up. Shivering in her wet clothes she tried to remember but it was hard to concentrate when she was so cold and...<br/>The cold! Like an old key in a heavy lock she felt the pieces slot into place. It'd been cold that winter, the coldest anyone could remember and she'd been woken up by a strange wheezing, groaning sound and the flashing of a dim white light from outside. Suddenly she knew what it was that had been so strange about her memory, apart from the noise and the flashing lights little Dorothy had looked out of her bedroom window and seen a strange looking blue box nestled in the snow. She'd seen the TARDIS outside her bedroom window years before she ever even knew what it was.<br/>'I think there's something we need to do,' she eventually managed to say.</p><p class="western">******</p><p>'You aren't here to talk about Christmas you fool,' the thin man said as knocked over the Doctor's white rook with his black knight, 'In your own strange way you already understand that, both the why and the how.'<br/>The Doctor studied the board before smiling disarmingly, 'Then why am I here?'<br/>The thin man studied the Time Lord intently, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hands.<br/>'You have beautiful hands by the way,' the Doctor said, 'Almost like a pianist's,'<br/>'Thank you.'<br/>'Considering how much blood you have on them.'<br/>Ignoring him the thin man narrowed his eyes as he seemed to come to a decision.<br/>'Even I wouldn't have used the girl in that way. It was an ill done thing.'<br/>The Doctor's attention strayed once again again from the chessboard in front of him. 'You wouldn't have used her? You!? You took her from her home and cast her into an unknown future and all in the hope that I'd take the bait.'<br/>'In that I was right.'<br/>'You were correct in your assessment of the situation though nothing about it was right. Your actions were morally reprehensible.'<br/>'I've always found morals such a tricky concept, so flimsy and so easily broken.'<br/>'How utterly unsurprising,' the Doctor said.<br/>'Is that my fault?'<br/>'I never said it was, but we digress...'</p><p class="western">******</p><p>On a tree-lined car park in the shadow of a squat L shaped block of council flats the TARDIS materialised in a deep unbroken snowdrift beneath the amber glow of a street light. As the time machine groaned into being the displacement of air molecules caused snow flurries to whip up into the night sky only to fall back to earth again with renewed vigour.<br/>Ace stepped through the TARDIS doors into the cold night air and into her past and stared up at the solidity of the building in front of her, so familiar but so strange to see after so many years away. There it stood, the same four-story fortress cast in concrete and dull orange brickwork, though between the blanket of snow and the street lights everything looked both orange and white, as though her past had been remade in sepia tones now that she was all grown up. The snow covered car park where the TARDIS had landed was where she'd first learned to ride a bike. That Ash tree by the main road was where she'd first kissed a boy, and somewhere in the nest of maisonettes in the block above her was where she'd first manufactured her own particular formula of high explosives. It looked exactly as she remembered, right down to the same tacky Christmas lights blinking haphazardly in the white plastic-framed windows. Same old Perivale, she thought to herself, of all the planets in all the universe why am I back in this dump? Cheap tinsel, stale mince pies and all the neighbours gathering round to watch the same old drama unfold.<br/>She blew on her hands in the freezing air before hugging herself tightly inside her bomber jacket, though whether it was for warmth or for comfort she couldn't tell. Apart from the wind all was silent, no planes or traffic and it was as though her old estate was entirely isolated from the world around it. Something about the snow and the silence felt like childhood and she shuddered involuntarily and not from the cold. Looking back into the warm light of the TARDIS she noticed that snow had already started collecting on the roof and recessed panels in the door. Her breath misted in front of her and she wondered again whether she was mad to have come back, though she still couldn't quite shake the feeling that she had a part to play here.<br/>'Christmas in Perivale,' she said deliberately loudly. 'Ever have that dream where you're back where you grew up and you've changed but nothing else has?'<br/>'I rarely dream,' the Doctor said as he pulled the TARDIS doors closed behind him. 'Or grow up for that matter.'<br/>Stands to reason, she thought. 'When are we?'<br/>'December, 1981,' he said, 'Christmas Eve to be precise, just as you requested.'<br/>Ace stamped the snow off her Doc Martens in the hope of warming up her feet and pulled her jacket more tightly around her. 'I don't remember it being this cold.'<br/>'The big snow,' her companion said, holding up a finger as a single snow flake settled on it. 'A strong high-pressure anticyclone over southern England interacted with a cold front and humid subtropical air from the south which collided with the colder Arctic air from the north.' He blew the snowflake from his finger with exaggerated care.<br/>'I still can't believe I met my Nan. It's funny but now I know who she was I can sort of see the resemblance.'<br/>'You didn't know her at all?' he asked.<br/>'No, she died when I was little but they weren't exactly close. There weren't even any photos of her around when I was growing up, though I remember mum crying for days when she died.'<br/>'Grief is frequently inexplicable and can only ever be endured not explained,' he said, standing under the street light in his donkey jacket. He turned and faced the sky, 'Grief is the price we pay for love.'<br/>She shivered inside her bomber jacket and blinked the snow from her eyelids. What are we doing here, she thought to herself again.<br/>The Doctor frowned suddenly and tilted his head towards the sky, his eyes lost in shadow. Ace felt it as well, a tension building in the quiet stillness. Perhaps she'd shrugged it off as the strangeness of coming home again but there was definitely something in the air.<br/>'What is it?' she asked.<br/>'There's an evil at work here?'<br/>'You mean apart from the IRA, the cold war and Margaret Thatcher?'<br/>The Doctor reached out and gripped Ace's arm with a sudden intensity. 'We must be careful, and not only because we've ventured back into your own personal history.'<br/>'Alright Professor leave it out, I don't need another lecture on the sanctity of the laws of time.'<br/>'You remembered something important that led us here, tell me what it was.'<br/>'I told you all I could remember back in the TARDIS!' she said. 'When I was swimming in Maiden's Bay, all I could think about was mum and it just came back to me. I was only little but it seemed so familiar, I heard raised voices downstairs but I stayed in bed until the coast was clear and I'm sure I heard the TARDIS outside. At least I think I do... It has to mean something, there must be something here we have to do.'<br/>They both turned at the sound of a crash that came from the darkened corner of the bin store at the bottom of a nearby stairwell and stood unmoving until the noise subsided. 'Follow me,' the Doctor said finally.<br/>He ran quickly through the dark up the nearby stairwell, ignoring the litter and graffiti, navigating by whatever strange instinct it was that Time Lords possessed and she followed close behind. At the top of the stairs they turned left along the second floor balcony, past all the identical front doors all rendered the same dull shades in the darkness. Snow flurries whipped through the air and she could see where some of her neighbours had made half-hearted attempts to clear a path in front of their doors, not that it had made much difference and on several occasions she'd nearly skidded on the icy concrete. On he ran and she followed him of course, even as she recognised where it what it was he was leading her to, what else could she do but run with him? Perhaps there'd come a day when she wouldn't blindly follow the Doctor towards whatever danger it was he was at war with but despite everything he'd said and everything he'd done she knew that day wouldn't come for a very long time.<br/>Eventually he stopped and put his hand on a familiar white front door and her heart sank, even though she'd known where it was they'd been heading all along. No matter how far she'd come it had always been there waiting for her like a reckoning.<br/>'Home, sweet home,' he said bitterly.<br/>Ace closed her eyes involuntarily. It was exactly as she remembered, right down to the same lacklustre coloured fairy lights blinking in the narrow window by the side of the door, the same broken letterbox that let a cold draft in.<br/>'Doctor,' she said leaning heavily against the door frame, 'I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.' Her voice cracked and the Doctor put a hand on her shoulder. 'After everything you've been through already it won't be easy to see her, to re-enter your past, believe me. I wouldn't think any less of you if you wanted to go back to the TARDIS.'<br/>'No chance,' she said, and reached down to retrieve the spare key from under the doormat. Sliding the key into the lock came with another flood of nostalgia and she took a moment as she stood halfway inside the doorway of her childhood home to consider her actions. Apart from the Christmas lights the hallway was dark and everything seemed different but also the same as well, until she realised that she was the one who'd changed, seeing the same sad little maisonette from an adult perspective. Even in the darkness she recognised the same hideous orange and brown patterned carpet that covered the hallway floor. Ignoring the darkened kitchen to her right with its worn Formica surfaces and stained beige cupboards she ventured further into the hallway, stopping only to stare up the darkened staircase knowing that her eleven year old self was up there in her care bear nightie, awake, alone and afraid. At the end of the corridor was the door that led to the living room and through the frosted glass panels she could just make out the lights of the Christmas tree.<br/>She felt the Doctor's steady presence behind her and with a dull nod she carried on walking till they reached the door ahead and not knowing but half suspecting what it was she'd find she pushed it open onto an all too familiar scene. It was a relatively small room, the far corner entirely taken up by the large fake plastic Christmas tree which stood where it always did next to the door to the rear balcony. As it was every year without fail the tree was practically wilting under the weight of tinsel, baubles and lights with a handful of haphazardly wrapped presents underneath. In the dim light she noticed a pile of LPs lying scattered on the floor in front of the record player on the sideboard and the same tired decorations hanging from the mirror over the gas fireplace. She registered all the details of the room peripherally as it blurred into background noise, all her attention entirely taken up by the figure of a slim, dark haired woman lying on the sofa, her permed hair splayed out across the faux-leather and her floral patterned dress slightly askew. Ace took a step forward but stopped abruptly as her foot bumped against an empty wine bottle. As she stood in silence and stared she noticed the steady rise and fall of the chest of the woman in front of her.<br/>Ace took a deep breath and only spoke when she realised the woman was asleep. 'Hello Audrey,' she said.<br/>'That's not your mother,' the Doctor said quietly from somewhere behind her.<br/>After a hard laugh she was about to explain that she was pretty sure she could recognise her own mother but before she had the chance to speak Audrey pulled herself suddenly upright and turned to face the Doctor.<br/>She eyes opened and they glowed an unearthly green.<br/>'Time Lord,' she whispered in a voice that was both strange and familiar.<br/>******<br/>The Doctor held his Queen poised aloft as he considered his next move. From somewhere far away he heard the distant crash of thunder as unearthly lightening flickered across the flat horizon.<br/>'To use her mother like that... Now that was an ill done thing,' he said.<br/>Fenric smiled, 'Though not without a sort of poetic irony, no? It was also necessary.'<br/>'Is evil ever necessary? Beyond the maintenance of the universal equilibrium I really do wonder what purpose you and your kind serve? Tiresome little nemeses from the dawn of time, I seem to be beset with them in this incarnation.' The Doctor looked down at his tweed jacket and burgundy waistcoat uncertainly, idly brushing off a speck of dust. 'I do hope my next self has a more even playing field, I'm growing ever so tired of chess.'<br/>Fenric leaned forward in his chair, his cruel lips drawn back into an attempt at a smile. 'You sense your end is soon. Another little death for the Time Lord that has brought ruin to so many.'<br/>'I've only ever done what I thought was right, just as I always have.'<br/>'Oh really? I'm not sure “right” ever played a part,' Fenric laughed, 'I've never seen you so calculating, so hungry for bloodshed. Perhaps we haven't seen the last of the Valeyard just yet...'<br/>'I might have dirtied my hands somewhat but it was always with the best intentions.'<br/>'Tell that to the good citizens of Skaro if you can find any.'<br/>'The Daleks had it coming,' he said with a grim sneer. 'Enough with these games, have you anything useful to tell me?'<br/>Fenric leant back in his chair. 'Christmas was so long ago.'<br/>'Aren't they all?'<br/>'Sing for me again Time Lord.'<br/>'As you wish.'<br/>*****<br/>'Oh no,' Ace whispered.<br/>The Doctor swept past her like a stormfront, the small Time Lord seeming to occupy twice as much space as he normally did and as angry as she'd ever seen him.<br/>'Fenric.' he said with disgust. 'I thought I smelled your stench but I assumed it was the bins. Having a day out I see, I'll have to put a stop to that.'<br/>Fenric took a halting step forward in the borrowed form of Audrey McShane and Ace noticed the same scent of perfume she remembered from her childhood, the familiarity of it reinforcing the horror of what was unfolding in front of her.<br/>'Doctor what's it doing?' she cried, 'Why is it here?' How do we make it stop?'<br/>'To answer your questions in order; I don't know, I don't know and I don't know, Just as well that I enjoy surprises,' he said with a strange delight.<br/>Even as he spoke Fenric turned sharply and fixed her with a glare, her eerie green eyes set in the same disappointed frown Ace remembered from childhood. 'My my my Dorry, look at you all grown up.'<br/>'Shut up!'<br/>Audrey twitched and leaned towards her with her arms outstretched out, 'Haven't you got a hug for your old mum?'<br/>Horrified Ace backed away, bumping into a fringed lampshade behind her. This isn't happening, she thought to herself, repeating it like a mantra in the hope that when she stopped she'd be safely back in her bed onboard the TARDIS.<br/>Fenric shrugged her shoulders, hoisted her floral dress back into position and brushed the hair off her shoulders with a sigh. 'Now where are my manners? Who fancies a nice cup of tea?'<br/>'No!' Ace screamed, ' Not my mum you monster, leave her alone. You've taken everything from me but not her as well.' Ace slapped angrily at the face of the woman she'd hated for so long as she shouted. 'Get out, get out, GET OUT!' With an angry shove she sent the small woman flailing backwards to land awkwardly on the sofa.<br/>A hand pressed itself into her shoulder as the Doctor stepped forward. 'Aboo-Fenrán!' he cried. 'I don't know how you've escaped and I don't care. Whatever it is you hope to achieve, it ends here, it ends now. I command you to return to the shadow dimensions where you belong,' he said darkly. 'Leave this woman alone.'<br/>Fenric began to laugh, a low smoker's laugh that dissolved into coughing. 'Oh dear me no, I'm afraid that's not for you to decide at all.' The smile faded from her face and her eyes hardened. 'I won't be disrespected in my own home.'<br/>'You're not her,' Ace shouted. 'Stop it, stop pretending to be my mum!'<br/>'Oh aren't I, Dorothy Gale McShane?' the slim brown haired woman spat in response as she advanced towards her. 'Wasn't it me who carried you? I never wanted to be a mother! I came round to the idea eventually when I found out I was having my own little girl, all those little dresses I bought from Mothercare and what do I end up with; you! Such an angry little thing, nothing I ever did was good enough for you, sulking in your bedroom and stinking out the house with all those nasty chemicals. Now get up those stairs and think about what you've done.'<br/>'Of course!' the Doctor exclaimed suddenly, 'We've created a weak point in the substrata of the continuum.' He broke into an surprised smile, it was a smile she recognised though it gave her no comfort as Audrey took another faltering step towards her daughter.<br/>'Doctor can't you do something?' she cried.<br/>'I'm sorry I can't, this isn't my battle.'<br/>Ace through up her hands and spun to face her friend who stood impassively beside her. 'What? How can you just-'<br/>A rough hand shoved her shoulder and she took another step backwards. 'Such a disappointment!' Audrey continued. 'All your school reports and then the police involved as well? I nearly died of shame that day they brought you home, all the neighbours watching and judging. And then those awful social workers had the nerve to say that I was to blame.'<br/>Ace balled up her fists and pressed them into her eyes. 'You were to blame,' she shouted. 'I wasn't bad, I was just a child. All my life you made me feel like I wasn't good enough, like I was the reason you were unhappy.'<br/>Audrey scowled, 'You're not too old to put over my knee you know.'<br/>'Fight it Ace,' the Doctor called.<br/>'I can't!'<br/>'You must,' he shouted. 'If I'm right Fenric is only able to manifest here because of your hatred of your mother. When we defeated it in 1943 it survived, feeding off your negative emotions because of your relationship with her,' he said, pointing at Audrey her green eyes glowing. 'That memory of the TARDIS waking you up on Christmas eve wasn't real, it was Fenric's last trap, to bring you here to a point where it could take corporeal form using the strength of your own emotions against us. Hate her or fear her, it only makes Fenric stronger.'<br/>'I don't understand! What can I do?'<br/>'Only the most powerful and important thing in the universe... You have to forgive her.'<br/>Audrey flung her arm out at the Doctor and sent him flying backwards, he bounced off the fireplace and lay still on the ugly carpet.<br/>'Doctor!' she screamed, suddenly aware that she was now entirely alone in her childhood home along with both her tormentors in the same form.<br/>'Do you really think he cared about you?' Audrey whispered. 'You heard what he said, “an emotional cripple who couldn't even pass her chemistry O-Level?” Does that sound like something a friend would say? No no no, Dorothy. You belong with me, with your mother. I might have found it hard to love you but at least you could depend on me. I always put food on the table and I kept you in clean clothes and put a roof over your head. Not that you deserved it, you sullen, ungrateful little madam.'<br/>Ace shut her eyes and tried to ignored the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. Nothing Audrey could possibly say to her could be worse than what she'd already heard growing up. There were no haemovores or any other monsters in Perivale that could fight Fenric's battles for it, all it had was empty words. Maybe they'd once been true, maybe she had been difficult but she'd given as good as she got and she understood something about love now, thanks to the Doctor, and she understood even more about loss and fear and pain but also joy and adventure and life. She wasn't Dorothy Gale McShane anymore, crap at school and picked on by her peers, she was Ace, and Ace knew better, Ace did better. It was Ace who'd beat up a Dalek with a baseball bat and escaped by jumping through a window, it was Ace who'd fought gods and monsters and won, and who else but Audrey had she to thank for teaching her how to fight? Opening her eyes she took in the dim green glow as Audrey advanced towards her, her arms outstretched. Before she could question the impulse Ace threw herself forward, her arms closing tightly around Audrey's slim shoulders. She felt the woman go tense, just as she always had whenever Dorothy had tried to hug her but she didn't care. Despite the strangeness of everything, where she was and how she'd come to be there, above all else she felt a joy that seemed too large to explain.<br/>'Thank you,' she said through the sobs that racked her body. 'Thank you, you mad bitch for making me exactly who I am and who I needed to be to survive you and Fenric.' Her words came in a rush and she realised once she started talking that she couldn't stop. 'He thought he was pulling the strings all along, like I was his little lapdog put here to do his bidding, but an evil from the dawn of time's got nothing on the mean streets of Perivale and there was always someone else pulling the strings. You were always so cross with me, like you thought I was nothing. Maybe I was crap at school but I knew things and I was cleverer than you realised and for what it's worth I do love you and I forgive you, even though you don't deserve it because lets face it, I might have been a disappointment but you were a bad mother.'<br/>She found herself kissing her mother's cheeks in a manner that felt both childish but necessary, the salty taste of tears mingling with those on the face in front of her. With a sudden cry Audrey went rigid and began to shake. Releasing her from her bear hug Ace took a step back and found herself standing next to the Doctor who looked impassively at the scene in front of him, clutching his umbrella.<br/>Audrey clutched at her throat as the green glow in her eyes flickered and faded. 'Time Lord,' she gasped. 'How did you know?'<br/>'I didn't,' he said, taking a step forward, 'but I hoped I was right and sometimes that's enough. I've often thought that to hold hope aloft like a candle flickering in the face of the darkness is half the battle won. Thank you for confirming I was right.' He raised his index finger and touched it gently to her mother's forehead. 'Go.'<br/>Audrey's eyes rolled upwards and she collapsed as the Doctor stepped forward to catch her. He laid her carefully back on the sofa, arranging her dress modestly over her knees and cleared his throat awkwardly.<br/>Ace brushed at the tears on her cheeks and laughed at the unconscious woman in front of her. 'Night night mum, sweet dreams.'<br/>The Doctor took her hand in his own, his eyes downcast and invisible beneath the brim of his hat. 'If there's anything else you'd like to say, now is the time. We don't have long.'<br/>She looked down at the sleeping form of her mother. 'Nah, said it all already. Thanks for making me. Will she remember anything?'<br/>'She'll wake up from a nightmare she'll neither comprehend nor recall and she'll hold her daughter close as she should until they both fall asleep,' he said. 'Just as you remember.'<br/>'But I was wrong, we were never supposed to be here were we? It was all Fenric's trap again?'<br/>The Doctor cocked his head and stared out of the window at the falling snow, ' I think we were exactly where we needed to be.'<br/>They both turned at the sound of a floorboard creaking overhead. 'Time to go?' she asked.<br/>'Indeed, I think we've both had enough excitement without Blinovitch rearing his ugly head.'<br/>'Who?' she whispered as they made their way down the hall.<br/>'Nevermind,' said the Doctor as he closed the door behind them.<br/>As they retraced their steps back to the TARDIS the enormity of it all still overwhelmed her if she allowed it. Instead she could only think of it as fragmentary images; the burning chess set in Millington's laboratory, the eerie green hue of Sorin's eyes as she'd realised what she'd done, or was it laughing with Jean and Phyllis before they'd been made cold and monstrous by Fenric's curse. Perhaps what she'd remember above all else was standing in the rain as she helped Kathleen escape and promising to love the baby that would turn out to be her own mother, or Audrey's cold green eyes as Fenric had forced her to speak her poisonous truths. Maybe it didn't even matter in the end. Perhaps experience and memory were just the labyrinth we wander in search of some kind of resolution, she thought. Or maybe it's all just nonsense and we are who we are because of what we've endured. Look at me Professor, she wanted to say. I get it now. You do what you have to do and so do I and that's why we're a team.<br/>Satisfied with exactly who she was, what she knew and where she was going, Ace crossed the snowy car park, followed the Doctor into the TARDIS and closed the door firmly behind her.</p><p class="western">******</p><p>The Doctor repositioned his queen, knocking Fenric's knight off the board with a casual swagger. 'She was always in control, that's what you failed to understand. Ace was never your wolf and she joined me on her own terms, just as I appreciated her for who she was. Tut tut Fenric, have you learned nothing from all your years of incarceration?'<br/>'I learned how to strike from the shadows, to take what victories where I could find them.'<br/>'I'm sure you have, though suburbia really doesn't become you. From ancient Constantinople to end up in Perivale? How are the mighty fallen.' The Doctor replaced his hat on his head and smiled. 'And it's back to the shadows for you, at least for now.'<br/>'I may have lost the girl but don't ever imagine that our immortal game has ended. I have other pieces on the board, other traps to spring. Perivale was only ever a reminder that I can reach you any where at any time.'<br/>'Oh Fenric you poor mad brute,' the Doctor said as he collected up his umbrella. 'I was never really playing chess, I was only ever playing hopscotch.'.<br/>'Wait,' the thin man commanded. 'I forbid you!'<br/>'I think not. TTFN,' the Doctor said, doffing his hat.<br/>'Please, I beg of you... I'll be alone.'<br/>'Yes I imagine you will,' said the Doctor with a look of undisguised satisfaction.<br/>'You'll never know,' he shouted as the Doctor stood. 'About Dorothy's future!, My wolf, my most perfect trap. I can still see her and all it is she could become. Don't you want to know?'<br/>'I already do. This will be my last visit. Enjoy the rest of eternity, it's very nearly over.<br/>The Doctor knocked over both Kings before turning and setting off toward the horizon. On a rocky outcrop amidst the dust he stumbled onto the familiar blue solidity of the TARDIS and turned to take a final look at the pitiful face of the figure he'd fought for as long as he could remember.<br/>He closed the door behind him and the time machine disappeared with the herald of ancient engines. The same dull quiet settled upon the plain of dust and bones and Fenric looked out upon the wasteland that was his prison and sighed.<br/>The wind howled and nothing of importance ever happened again.</p>
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